Monday, December 21, 2015

Finished One Barn Project and the Donkey Got Out Again





It was a nice enough day today that I unloaded all the split wood off the truck and filled the wood racks up. Let the furnace burn totally out and did a complete cleaning and then managed to go down and finish replacing the bottom board along the front of the barn foundation and suck in the loose siding. About 30 foot of maintenance work but it sure did tighten up the barn once again and made the doors easier to open and close too.

In another 50 years I might have that barn totally replaced piece by piece....  On second thought no. The only parts that are showing any age rot at all are the ones that were exposed to water and the weather. That old oak that was used in that barn is like a rock now. I have to pre-drill all the screw holes or the cordless drill doesn't have enough umphfff to put a screw into it.

As I am standing out there cutting another 2x10" for the baseboard I watched that damned ancient zombie donkey go through the electric fence again. I now know where she was doing it and how and I fixed her little spot for good. There was one spot where the bottom line was close enough to the ground for her to step over and the top strand was just maybe half an inch above her spine. After I got her back in I moved the top strand down about a foot which should now put a stop to her shenanigans. If it doesn't she will be going into the West pasture with the sheep. The way things are looking I might actually get to put in another line of fence posts this weekend and finally get rid of all the electric fence for good and be almost ready to open up the East pasture before Spring.

This evening all but two of the chickens were in the coop by full dark. One of the two stragglers was actually laying right outside the door so she almost made it and I only had to go searching for one. Ever so slowly I am making progress with this roosting thing. Rocky actually has taken it on himself to attempt to round as many of the hens up as possible and move them into the coop to.




Speaking of Rocky. The self styled King of all chickens has developed a new tactic for having his way with the hens. It's actually quite clever. I guess he grew tired of running the ones down who were not impressed with his manly or roosterliness and now he pretends he has found some particularly good food on the ground and starts making that feeding call. The hens fall for it every time and come running and when they come in to see what Rocky has found he jumps on one and has his way with her.

Good thing Rocky ain't a White Male college student I guess or he would already be expelled. He must have pulled that trick half a dozen times or more while I was down working on the barn. I think they put chicken viagra in that feed or something.

Anyway got called into work tomorrow so I made another post early tonight and I have a tractor time post scheduled for tomorrow afternoon if it works.

Until then.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!






6 comments:

  1. What kind of rooster is he again?

    Exile1981

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  2. Ah, cockerels! Our young cockerel is so full of himself that he has started banning the six geese from going anywhere near his hens. The geese are big, he is only half their size, but his ego says otherwise! Lester often has to intervene to stop him from getting too bossy!

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  3. We have a barn to move it will be an interesting challenging project when we start the barn has been in place for donkeys years and re-clad many times, the uprights are so solid you cant bang a nail in :-)

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  4. If only I had the room for a barn.

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  5. I have seen our roosters do that over the years, the hens eventually figure it out though. We had two roosters try and kill each other this afternoon so they are in the pot. They were beyond doing anything with and were still fighting to the end, the rest of them were starting to fight but now it is dark and they calm down then. More butchering tomorrow if it isn't raining. Don't raise roosters unless there is a meat shortage some day.

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  6. Donkeys are so sneaky. Our neighbors used to have 3 and they wiggled their way out fairly frequently. THey were hard to catch, too!

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